Albers critical of Red Bull's approach: 'They can't do that to Verstappen'

"I also just think Gasly really deserves a chance at another team. The problem is just, you have these stranglehold contracts from Red Bull. The only one who doesn't have a contract like that is Max Verstappen, but the rest just have a serious problem. It's all nice, all those programs for young drivers, but I've experienced it all myself and it's no joke", Albers tells in the F1 podcast of The Telegraph.

"It's not like you can decide to go somewhere else. Then you really need uncle Marko. If I'm going to look at Gasly's performance that he's constantly performing, but also look at life outside of Formula 1, you do see this frustration that he feels f*cked by Red Bull, with all due respect."

Red Bull made a mistake with the pressure

According to the former F1 driver, Gasly overperformed in the AlphaTauri and he criticises Red Bull's previous approach. "The mistake is also the pressure. I also thought it was really disrespectful how they treated drivers. We're not talking about it now because Max is there, but with [Daniil] Kvyat it was obviously terrible as well. The guy gets on the podium and gets thrown out the next race. Let's be honest, that makes no sense at all. That is Helmut Marko, but they have learned from it. They didn't give the pressure anymore with [Alexander] Albon, they didn't try to give the pressure anymore with Perez, so they do learn from their mistakes. It was really the old-fashioned, Austrian way of Dr Marko though."

"I can tell you one thing, they can't do that to Max, because then they have a problem with Jos. In the beginning, you could see that Marko wanted to give a tap every now and then when Max came to Red Bull the first year. Now you can see that he doesn't dare anymore, those days are really over", Albers concludes.